FRENCH AND GERMAN UNIVERSITIES.

In a recent article on the Universities of Germany, France and England, Prof. Helmholtz makes the following remarks on the French and German University systems:

"In accordance with the tendency of the French to throw overboard everything of historic development to suit some rationalistic theory, the faculties of their universities have logically become purely institutes for instruction-special schools, with definite regulations for the course of instructions developed and quite distinct from those institutions which are to further the progress of science such as the College de France, the Jardin des Plantes, and the Ecle des Etudes Superieures. The faculties are entirely separated from one another, even when they are in the same town. The course of study is definitely prescribed, and is controlled by frequent examinations. French teaching is confined to that which is clearly established, and transmits this in a well-arranged, well-worked-out manner, which is easily intelligible, and does not excite doubt nor the necessity of deeper enquiry. The teachers need only possess good receptive talents. Thus in France it is looked upon as a false step when a young man of promising talents takes a professorship in a faculty in the provinces. The method of instruction in France is well adapted to give pupils, of even moderate capacity, sufficient knowledge for the routine of their calling. They have no choice between different teachers, and they swear in verbamagistra; this gives a happy self-satisfaction and freedom from doubts. If the teacher has been well chosen, this is sufficient in ordinary cases, in which the pupil does what he has seen his teacher do. It is only unusual cases that test how much actual insight and judgment the pupil has acquired. The French people are moreover gifted, vivacious, and ambitious, and this corrects many defects in their system of teaching.

A special feature in the organization of French universities consists in the fact that the position of the teacher is quite independent of the favors of his hearers; the pupils who belong to his faculty are generally compelled to attend his lectures, and the far from inconsiderable fees which they pay flow into the chest of the Minister of Education; the regular salaries of the university professors are defrayed from this source; the state gives but an insignificant contribution toward the maintenance of the university. When, therefore, the teacher has no real pleasure in teaching, or is not ambitious of having a number of pupils, he very soon becomes indifferent to the success of his teaching, and is inclined to take things easily.

Outside the lecture-rooms the French students live without control, and associate with young men of other callings, without any special espritdecorps or common feeling.

The development of the German universities differs characteristically from that of the French. Too poor in their own possessions not to be compelled, with increasing demands for the means of instruction, eagerly to accept the help of the state, and too weak to resist encroachments upon their ancient rights in times in which modern states attempt to consolidate themselves, the German universities have had to submit themselves to the controlling influence of the state. Owing to this latter circumstance the decision in all important university matters has in principal been transferred to the state, and in times of religious or political excitement this supreme power has occasionally been unscrupulously exerted. But in most cases the states which were working out their own independence were favorably disposed toward the universities; they required intelligent officials, and the fame of their country's university conferred a certain luster upon the government. The ruling officials, were, moreover, for the most part students of the university; they remained attached to it. It is very remarkable how among wars and political changes in the states fighting with the decaying empire for the consolidation of their young sovereignties, while almost all other privileged orders were destroyed, the universities of Germany saved a far greater nucleus of their internal freedom and of the most valuable side of this freedom, then in conscientious, conservative England, and then in France with its wild chase after freedom.

The German universities have retained the old conception of students as that of young men responsible to themselves, striving after science of their own free will, and to whom it is left to arrange their own plan of studies as they think best. If attendance on particular lectures was enjoined for certain callings-what are called "compulsory lectures"-these regulations were not made by the university, but by the state, which was afterwards to admit candidates to these callings-At the same time the students had, and still have, perfect freedom to migrate from one German university to another, from Dorpat to Zurich, from Vienna to Gratz; and in each university they had free choice among the teachers of the same subject, without reference to their position as ordinary or extraordinary professors, or as private docents. The students are, in fact, free to acquire any part of their instruction from books ; it is highly desirable that the works of great men of past times should form an essential part of study."